


The Indulgent Cat Fic

by Elayna



Category: Die Hard (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-29
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elayna/pseuds/Elayna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt rescues a cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless appearance by my LoveCat, which is appropriate, since he's shameless.

Loud noises tended to make John respond quickly, so the banging made him run out of the kitchen and to the front door, opening it to reveal Matt in mid-kick, his arms occupied by something struggling within his jacket.

"Matt?"

"Grab it. Shit!" 'It' was already escaping from Matt's arms, an orange and white basketball-shaped streak that leapt through the air, landed on the carpet, and fled into the living room, leaving Matt wincing as he touched the blood oozing from a scratch on his chin. "Damn it."

"You brought a cat to my house? In your jacket?" John curled a hand around Matt's wrist, pulling him into the house and shutting the door behind them, leading him to the bathroom.

"It wasn't planned. Those kids down the street were trying to hurt it. It ran away from them. I yelled at them and scooped it up."

John got out antiseptic and a band-aid. "Down by the yellow house?"

"Yeah."

"I'm going to have to talk to them." He'd talked to the parents already about the brothers' minor acts of vandalism, but that clearly hadn't worked. Time to put the fear of John in them before they ended up in juvenile hall. He wiped the scratch clean, and smoothed a band-aid on Matt's cheek. "So what am I supposed to do with him?"

Matt shrugged. "Find who it belongs to? Take it to the pound?"

"Let's go see what shape he's in."

They ended up on their bellies, lying on the carpet in John's living room, staring at the cat, who was firmly ensconced under John's armchair. He was orange and white, with green eyes that glittered with a determination to not be captured. His sharp claws backed up his stubbornness.

John rubbed at faint line on his hand, thankful that the cat hadn't been quite close enough to draw blood. "Christ, he's fast." The cat growled, which John supposed was a minor improvement over the hissing.

"Wow, 'wild cat' brings up some interesting websites," Matt said, having risen up on his elbows so he could surf the Internet on his phone.

John cuffed him on the head. "Get off the porn sites."

"Getting, getting. Okay, hmmm."

"What? Any good advice?"

"Mostly just to leave him alone until he relaxes and will trust you. Put some food and water and a litter box close to him."

"Yeah? Did you scoop up a litter box with him?" John grumbled, but he rolled to his feet, and offered Matt a hand up. "I've got some hamburger. What do you think, cat? You want some hamburger?"

Cat declined to respond.

"Maybe dirt from the garden for the litter box?" Matt suggested, tucking his phone back into his pocket.

They scavenged around, ending up with a cardboard box with some dirt from John's miniscule yard, a bowl of water, and another of hamburger, leaving everything in the living room before they retreated to the office for the next step in Matt's ongoing quest to prove to John that the Internet was both useful and fun. The afternoon's task – get John enrolled in online banking – was dutifully accomplished, though John still didn't see that writing checks was all that big of a deal.

"Just give it a try for a few months, okay? You'll get used to it, I promise. And sooner or later they're going to get rid of checks altogether, so you might as well be ready."

"They can't get rid of checks."

"Yes, they can, and they will. Trust me. And look here," Matt added, quickly typing, finding links to sports bloopers on youtube. "Fun stuff. Sports stuff. On the Internet. Twenty-four seven."

John watched, and laughed, and conceded that okay, maybe the Internet did have a few amusing items. "You can get all those things on DVDs too, though," he pointed out, as they were eating pizza and drinking beer in his kitchen, the conversation having zigzagged back to technology and the changing future, as it so often did when John and Matt were together. "Sports bloopers and greatest moments in football."

"You have to buy them though."

"I'm buying the Internet connection every single month. That's one of those bills you helped me set up."

"But it's one fee and then it's everything. The entire world at your fingertips, online."

John shrugged, wiping the grease of Brooklyn's best pizza off his fingers. At least Matt hadn't turned out to be a health nut who tried to make him eat organic all the time, because John was very much afraid he was losing the battle to resist technology, and he could only handle so many adjustments. "We should check on your cat."

"It's not my cat."

"You rescued him. That makes him yours."

Matt swallowed the last of his pizza and wiped his mouth. "Yeah, and you rescued me and Lucy and the entire country. I'm not holding you responsible for all of us."

"Lucy is my responsibility. She's my daughter," John shot back as they crossed into the living room. Most of the hamburger was gone. The cat was no longer under the chair, but still close, lying on the floor with all paws curled under him. Now that John could see better, he realized that one of his ears was clipped, giving him a battered look, and though he wasn't quite basketball-sized, he was certainly full-bodied. "Hey, cat."

"Lucy stopped being your responsibility when she hit 18."

"Lucy's my responsibility until I die."

Matt made a noise in the back of his throat, neither agreeing or disagreeing with that assertion. Likely he disagreed, but he knew when it was pointless to argue with John. "It's probably too late to take it anywhere."

"It looks like it's been eating regularly. It must belong to someone."

They both contemplated the cat, who contemplated them back, blinking his green eyes slowly. "There must be a website for lost pets. I'll find it," Matt offered. He pulled out his phone, holding it toward the cat, and taking a photo. "I'll upload the picture and list my email. I'll give you a call if I find an owner."

John gave him a wry look. "So he stays here until that happens?"

"It's not like I can get him home. And wow, look at the time. I've got to go. I've got to be online soon."

"Yeah. Okay," John agreed, because he couldn't see kicking the cat out to be tormented again, so he might as well stay for a while.

John saw Matt out, watching him walk down the street. It was nice that Matt had moved to Brooklyn. Both of their hours could be so screwy, John's from the demands of his job, Matt's because Internet people had a weird sense of time. Being close, they still managed to see each other regularly, which they might not have managed if Matt had relocated within New Jersey.

He cleaned up the kitchen, then got his laptop from the office, setting it on the coffee table, and finding youtube again, thankful that Matt had insisted on wireless. Television was crap these days, and as much as John didn't want to admit it to Matt, surfing around on sports videos was amusing. He ignored the cat, but noted occasionally that he moved, getting closer and closer. When he was finally sitting by John's feet, John dangled an arm down, until the cat rubbed his head on John's hand, letting John scritch between his ears. He began purring, a sound as loud as his body was round.

"You're feeling comfortable now, aren't you?" John asked the cat, before scooping him up and setting him on his lap. The cat kneaded John's leg, digging his claws in, making John happy that he was wearing thick cords. "We're going to have to figure out how to cut your claws," he told the cat, stroking his hand along the cat's back.

The cat purred harder in response to the attention.

"Yeah, you act tough, but you want to be loved, don't you?"

That earned John a lick on his hand, which he wasn't entirely sure he liked, as the cat's tongue was rough and wet.

"Yeah, okay. I'll go out tomorrow and get cat food and stuff," he promised the cat. If Matt didn't find an owner, maybe he'd keep the cat. If he ever got a pet, he'd always thought it would be a dog, but dogs needed regular walking. A cat would be a better animal for him.

As if he understood the promise, the cat rolled over, rubbing the back of his head on John's leg, his front paws kneading the air. John tentatively rubbed his belly, surprised when the cat let him, eyes half-slitted with pleasure.

"You're just a big pussy cat, aren't you?" Petting the cat was relaxing, soft fur and comforting purring. The new things just kept coming and coming, all brought to him by Matt.

Maybe change wasn't so bad.

~ the end ~

Author's note: I have an idle suspicion that John is going to find a cat for Matt, but it's only an idle suspicion at this point. What kind of cat does Matt deserve?  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt tries to not regret rescuing a cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to for the excellent betaing!

Wanting to reset the country to a pre-technology era had been undoubtedly the most bone-headed idea in existence, so Matt figured that being jealous of a cat was a step up.

And not just any cat, but a green-eyed, orange and white purring monster that Matt had brought into John's life. Truly, the situation was completely his own fault, whereas he only would have contributed a small part to Gabriel's destruction of the country.

He hadn't figured that the cat would stay, or that John would fall under its spell. But Matt couldn't find an owner, and no one wanted an adult cat when cute, little kittens were plentiful. So stay it did, and John became slowly attached to the beast.

Every time Matt visited John, the cat made its presence known, and truly, it had no standards in its shameless bids for attention. In the living room, as soon as John sat down, it leaped up and settled by him, its upper body and front legs draped over his legs, its claws kneading John's thighs as it purred loudly.

"I think its purr is broken. It doesn't know when to stop." Matthew tried to make like he was joking, but he was becoming ridiculously jealous of the attachment between John and the cat.

John only agreed. "Yeah. He's pretty noisy." But he kept stroking the cat, obviously liking the sound.

In the office, as Matt tried to coax John into accepting the current, technological age, it sat by the desk and purred until John reached down and petted it, which caused the purr to ramp up to levels that could be heard all over the house.

In the kitchen, it sat by its bowl and lifted one foot up, put it back down, then repeated with the other, in a motion John started calling 'pat pat.' John would glance over, like the cat was telepathically signaling his brain, and say, "Don't pat pat, kitty. You'll get dinner as soon as we're done."

At least he didn't say din-din or leap to feed it in the middle of dinner. John had some standards.

The cat even purred when John was asleep, as Matt discovered one afternoon. John didn't answer his knock, so he let himself in with the key John had given him after Matt had waited on the sidewalk one time. Matt had been thrilled that John trusted him with his house key. The house was quiet, and Matt correspondingly kept his voice soft as he called for John, wandering through the house. He finally peered into the bedroom, seeing John sprawled on top of the covers, dressed in faded blue jeans and a white t-shirt, his feet bare. He looked exhausted by too many long days and late nights. The damn cat was lying by John's side, front paws on John's torso, green eyes challenging Matt as it purred and kneaded John's muscular chest. I can touch John how and whenever I like, the cat seemed to say.

Retreating to the kitchen, Matt began preparing dinner, cheeseburgers and salad, a compromise between their carnivorous tendencies and the nagging of John's doctor to increase his fruit and vegetable intake.

The cat wandered in as Matt was cutting carrots, pat patting by its bowl, but Matt resolutely ignored the begging.

John stumbled in next, yawning a bit as he took in the table with two place settings. "Sorry. You should have woken me."

"You looked like you needed the sleep."

"Stop pat patting, kitty. You get fed after dinner," John told the cat as he sat down, stretching, still waking up from his nap. The cat jumped into his lap, beginning to knead his thighs and, of course, purring, even though John hadn't succumbed to its hints for food. "Yeah, good kitty."

Matt watched John and the cat, noticing how the lines in John's face softened, and his shoulders relaxed, some of the tension he always carried draining from him as he petted the cat. The reduction of John's obvious signs of stress made Matt feel absurd that his infatuation with a man old enough to be his father had reduced him to being jealous of an animal with a brain half the size of a baseball. Yeah, the cat was pushy, but it also cared for John, and John benefitted from its presence. For the first time, Matt had felt an alliance with the cat. He put down the knife and reached over, stroking the fur on the back of its neck, surprised when it turned its head, brushing its cheek against Matt's fingers, and purring louder.

"Take care of him," Matt told the cat.

John looked amused. "I've been taking care of myself for a long time."

Shrugging, Matt brushed his hand on his jeans, before beginning his chopping again. "It never hurts to have someone else looking out for you."

"Yeah," John agreed. "Matt and the cat, looking out for me."

"I didn't say I was looking out for you."

With an exaggerated turn of his head, John glanced at the set table, the burgers on the stove, the half-finished salad. "No, of course not. You're not looking out for me." He stood, letting the cat flow off his lap and onto the floor. "You want a beer?"

"Sure." As John opened the refrigerator, Matt launched into a political rant about the war in Afghanistan. He wasn't even sure if he was being coherent, but he knew it would distract John, who'd always find some way to defend the status quo. As John handed Matt an opened beer, he looked at him with an odd expression, but thankfully, didn't try to interrupt Matt's diatribe.

Bullet dodged, Matt thought gratefully, because that conversation had been getting too close to the truth.

John sprawled in the chair again, sipping his beer, and followed Matt's lead into the standard bickering over their different ideologies. The cat resumed its position on his lap, and purred.

~ the end ~


End file.
